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Ex-Laker Brickowski Dishes on $2M Gambling Game in Michael Jordan's Hotel Room
May 16, 2020
Former NBA center Frank Brickowski said Friday he once walked into Michael Jordan's hotel suite to see the remnants of a $2 million night of gambling.
Brickowski told John Canzano of the The Oregonian he accompanied fellow NBA player Charles Oakley to the room at 9 a.m. one morning and was amazed at the scene:
"Charles Oakley comes up behind me and grabs me and we laugh. He gets a phone call and he says, 'I'm talking with Brick,' and then he says to me, 'Let's go.' So I just follow him out the door, we go to this other tower and we go up and we go to Michael's suite and he has a gambling game still going on from the night before. It's nine o'clock in the morning and I look around the room and all I see is piles of cash. My mind goes to, 'We'll put sleeping gas under the door, everyone will get knocked out and we'll split the profits.' I saw Oakley later that night and said, 'Oak, how much money was in that room? There must have been a million dollars in that room.' He held up two fingers—there was $2 million in cash in that room."
Jordan's high-stakes cards games and golfing wagers have been spotlighted throughout ESPN's The Last Dance documentary about the 1990s Chicago Bulls that has been airing weekly since April 19. A clip of a 1993 interview with Connie Chung was shown where he denied having an addiction.
"I can stop gambling," he said. "I have a competition problem, a competitive problem."
Brickowski explained getting an up-close look at the situation didn't change his opinion of Jordan, per Canzano.
"Michael had a propensity to gamble, he could afford to gamble," he said. "You can say if that's a problem or not, or judge him, but I don't judge him. The guys who made the money and enjoyed the gambling, it gave them a way to escape from the game and the grind. Michael is a normal dude if he's in a safe environment and he creates the safe environment."
Brickowski played for the Seattle SuperSonics, Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs, Milwaukee Bucks, Charlotte Hornets and Boston Celtics during a 12-year NBA career.
The 60-year-old New York native works as a regional representative for the National Basketball Players Association.